


we the people

by magneticwave



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - The West Wing, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-09
Updated: 2016-11-09
Packaged: 2018-08-30 02:15:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8514739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magneticwave/pseuds/magneticwave
Summary: “I’m sorry,” Poe says, fifteen minutes into the sitrep in Mothma’s office, “can you repeat everything that you just said, but slower? Maybe try words with fewer syllables.”Mothma, austere as ever in a silver pantsuit and her Rachel Maddow haircut, leans back against her desk and says, “The First Gentleman punched Greedo Baxter in the face this morning.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> A day in the life of Poshua Damerman. 
> 
> I really, really wanted a reason to write 'Madam President' a bunch of times. This is my gift for a shitty day.

Saying that Poe wakes up on Tuesday morning and meets the man he’s going to marry is misleading, because Poe doesn’t actually go to sleep Monday night. He’d been in his office until 3AM working on prep for a fucking meeting on the fucking transpeople in the military policy, then he’d gone to Jess’ office and whined for an hour at her and the ceiling of her office above her couch, then he’d gone home, eaten a square of baked oatmeal the size of his head that somebody had left in his fridge, showered, and come back (not by fucking Dupont) in time for his 7AM sitrep with Mothma about the 8AM sitrep with the president.

It’s 6:50AM, Poe hasn’t slept in like 72 hours, and there’s somebody in Poe’s office.

“Hello?” Poe says, pausing in the doorway.

The guy turns and salutes. “Sir,” he says. He looks like the human personification of the career aspirations of every twelve-year-old Boy Scout in the country.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Poe says, to both the guy and the universe. “Snap!”

Snap, from somewhere behind Poe, says, “What?”

“Were you going to tell me that there’s somebody in my office, or just wait for me to figure it out and then fire you?” Poe says.

“You can’t fire me,” Snap says. “Anyway, I didn’t know there was somebody in your office. Who is it?”

“Who are you?” Poe asks the guy.

“Staff Sergeant Finn Bolaji, sir, United States Air Force,” says the guy. He’s standing in what Poe assumes, based on his experiences watching a lot of shitty blockblusters, is parade rest. He’s looking somewhere over Poe’s left shoulder, face carefully blank.

“It’s SSgt. Finn Bolaji,” Poe yells over his shoulder at Snap. “Did we have a meeting, staff sergeant?”

“Well thank god that’s been cleared up,” Snap mutters, not quite enough under his breath.

“No, sir,” SSgt. Bolaji says. “That is, sir, I’m here--” He makes a frustrated face, the first sign of an actual personality that he’s displayed. “I’m being honorably discharged, sir, next month.”

“Congratulations?” Poe says. His shoulder is starting to ache, probably because he’s still in the door of his office and he’s got a bag stuffed full of papers and two laptops--the DOD’s IT monkeys refuse to install access to the secure server on Poe’s favorite writing laptop, which may be ancient but saw him through law school, so fuck the DOD’s IT monkeys--still slung over his shoulder. He moves to get behind his desk and SSgt. Bolaji full-body twitches before getting out of his way.

“Thanks,” SSgt. Bolaji says. “Sir.”

“It’s Poe,” Poe says.

“Right, sir,” SSgt. Bolaji says. “I’m being honorably discharged next month, and--well, sir, is it true that you’re working with the president on something to help--well, transpeople serving in the armed forces?”

Poe very slowly lowers the bag with his laptops to the floor of his office. “Close the door, staff sergeant--can I call you Finn? If you’re being discharged.”

SSgt. Bolaji, closing the door to Poe’s office, says, “I can’t say anything right now, sir.”

“Since you’re still serving?” Poe clarifies.

“Yes, sir.”

“It’s _Poe_ ,” Poe says. “Oh, hell, I never--look, Poe Dameron, Deputy Chief of Staff, nice to meet you, Finn. Or, uh, SSgt. Bolaji.” He sticks his hand over his desk, and SSgt. Bolaji looks at it for a second before shaking it.

“I know who you are, sir,” he says, sounding the slightest bit aggrieved. “It’s why I’m here, meeting with you.”

“I wasn’t aware we had a meeting,” Poe points out, since he’s an asshole.

“We did,” SSgt. Bolaji says with a lot of confidence. “Otherwise I don’t think they would’ve let me in the building--sir.”

“Fair point,” Poe says. “Take a seat.”

“With all due respect, sir, I can’t stay,” SSgt. Bolaji says. “I just wanted to ask if the rights of transpeople in the military is a project you’re working on, and if you might still be working on it in a month--and if so, if we could schedule another meeting for then.”

“Why are you being discharged, if you don’t mind my asking?” Poe asks him. Since SSgt. Bolaji’s refused a seat, Poe doesn’t feel guilty about flopping back into his desk chair.

“I’ve been diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, sir,” SSgt. Bolaji says.

“You’re a little old for that, aren’t you?” Poe asks.

“I wouldn’t know, sir, as I didn’t go to medical school,” SSgt. Bolaji says. There’s something in the way that he delivers this sentence that suggests that he knows Poe didn’t, either. “You didn’t answer my questions about your project, sir.”

“I’m thinking,” Poe says, which is a lie. He’s already made up his mind. “You’re pretty well-informed, staff sergeant. I’m putting my toes in the water about that project, sure. Do you have some information that’s relevant?”

SSgt. Bolaji leans across Poe’s desk and offers his hand; after a bewildered moment, Poe shakes it. “Thanks for your time, sir,” SSgt. Bolaji says. “Do I make an appointment with you, or with your assistant?”

“Snap’s the one with the beard,” Poe says. It’s comes out a little weakly, probably because SSgt. Bolaji’s firm handshake is accompanied by a searing moment of eye contact. Poe sees the entire universe for a full three or four seconds; he might do something embarrassing like have to swallow hard or blink rapidly in an idiotic way. This is what happens when you meet beautiful people while sleep-deprived.

“Have a good day, sir,” SSgt. Bolaji says, and he disappears out the door of Poe’s office.

A few minutes of bizarre day-dreaming later, Snap leans in and snaps his fingers four times in front of Poe’s face--the reason for both his nickname _and_ the first three times Poe tried to fire him--and says, “You’re supposed to be in Mothma’s office right now.”

“Fuck, right,” Poe says, and he launches himself out of his desk chair.

“You’re embarrassing and easy to read, Dameron!” Snap shouts after him.

“Fuck you, Wexley!” Poe yells back.

~

“I’m sorry,” Poe says, fifteen minutes into the sitrep in Mothma’s office, “can you repeat everything that you just said, but slower? Maybe try words with fewer syllables.”

Mothma, austere as ever in a silver pantsuit and her Rachel Maddow haircut, leans back against her desk and says, “The First Gentleman punched Greedo in the face this morning.”

“Mother of God,” Jess says, clawing her own face. “ _Mother of God_.”

“Greedo--as in--is it--Greedo Baxter?” Maz says. Her entire face collapses inward with wrinkles as she clearly tries to remember who the fuck Greedo Baxter is. “Is he not the senior White House correspondent for some terrible rag?”

“ _Daily Journal_ ,” Jess says, through her fingers.

“I thought they fired him,” Poe manages. “Isn’t he with the _New York Post_?”

“They fired him last month,” Jess says. “ _Daily Journal_ took him back. I have to ask--how did he find the First Gentleman? God, scrap that, what did he say?”

Mothma pulls a sheet of paper off of her desk between her thumb and forefinger, slides her frameless glasses across her nose, and reads, “‘Mr. Organa-Solo, do you have a comment about your son’s interview with Stormfront yesterday wherein he called the president the foremost peril to the nation?’”

“Fuck,” Jess says, loudly.

“I refuse to believe that Greedo Baxter used the word ‘wherein,’” Poe says, to the room but mostly to Jess, who is the other person most familiar with Greedo’s dick moves.

“It was recorded,” Mothma says crisply. “This is a direct transcript.”

Jess, still holding her face onto her skull with her hands, says, “Did the First Gentleman say anything before punching him?”

Mothma looks back down at her sheet. “‘Yeah, how about both of you go straight to hell,’” she reads.

Poe, in the midst of taking a sip from his now freezing cold cup of Pike Place, nearly spits a mouthful of it across the table into Maz’s face.

“Dameron,” she says, raising a threatening eyebrow at him. Poe mouths _sorry_ and wipes off his chin with the back of his hand.

“What are we saying about the Stormfront thing anyway?” Poe asks. He licks the drops of coffee off of the back of his hand and Mothma audibly sighs.

“No comment, no comment, no comment,” Jess says. “I’ve told a couple of the more senior ones that if they don’t jerk me around on this I’d get them a few minutes with the president about Syria and I think it’s working.”

“The president’s son is on the verge of becoming the face of the white supremacy movement and you’re no commenting the _Washington Post_?” Poe says. “How is that even working?”

“Because Russia is about to wipe Syria off the face of the map with nuclear weapons they shouldn’t even have, Poe,” Jess says.

Mothma says, “Please, for the sake of this administration and my relationship with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, do not use that sound bite with any members of the White House Press Corps.”

Jess makes a face. “I know how to do my job,” she says. “It’s not my fault that Han Organa-Solo is half-cocked and his son is evil.”

“Let us not share that opinion, either,” Maz suggests. She folds her hands on top of her favored leather portfolio--inside of it she carries an iPad that Apple hasn’t even released on the market yet and a Mont Blanc pen engraved with the year she graduated law school; her ways are mysterious and confounding to Poe--and frowns absently across the table at Poe. “Do we have concerns that Mr. Baxter will sue?”

“None,” Poe says.

“Few,” Mothma corrects.

“C’mon, Mothma,” Poe says, leaning back in his chair. “Greedo is pond scum barely qualifying as a journalist but he knows better than to try to sue the first family.”

“Are we sure he’s smart enough to know that?” Jess points out.

“No,” Poe says, “but nobody who passed the bar is going to take that chance. Shouldn’t we be more worried about the fact that the First Gentleman didn’t deny allegations that the president’s son is, you know, the heir apparent to white nationalism?”

“That can’t be covered up,” Mothma says. She looks impeccable--as always--but there are tired lines around her mouth. Poe constantly forgets that she’s the president’s best friend and has been for thirty years, that she’s Ben Organa-Solo’s godmother and used to have his school pictures on her desk. “The president has denounced his views but there comes a point where fielding more questions on the subject will only remind Americans that they are related.”

“They have literally the same last name,” Poe says, but he’s summarily ignored.

“There is one avenue we have not pursued,” Maz says thoughtfully. “It would require some wrangling on your part, Mon.”

“In what capacity?” Mothma says, sounding ironic.

“Leia-wrangler, primarily,” Maz says, and Mothma sighs.

~

The 8AM sitrep with the president is pushed back indefinitely in the face of something that calls her and Mothma into the situation room with the Joint Chiefs, and Poe takes the opportunity to escape back to his office. He steals a danish from the platter that’s tucked under a plastic shell in the Roosevelt Room for Maz and Chewie’s sure-to-be-disastrous meeting with opposition leaders about the new budget plan and, once he’s back in his office, has Snap scare him up a fresh cup of sludge.

“You should take a nap,” Snap says, slamming Poe’s cup of coffee down on his desk.

“Why?” Poe says, taking the danish out of his mouth to slurp down some coffee. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

“And that’s going to be at fifty-five from a heart attack,” Snap says instantly. “You’re going to lose your boyish good looks.”

“Ow,” Poe says, having burned the roof of his mouth with boiling hot coffee. “Okay, first of all, your obsession with my boyish good looks has got to be worrying your husband.”

“I’m interested in men, Poe,” Snap says, “not boys. Do you have a second point or can I go back to my desk to do actual work?”

“Second of all,” Poe continues, “what have you scared up about the hot piece of USAF that was lying in wait in my office this morning?”

Snap crosses his arms across his chest and leans against the doorframe. “I’m impressed it took you a full 45 minutes to ask,” he says, in a judgmental way.

“I had a meeting,” Poe reminds him.

“Staff Sergeant Finn Bolaji is 24, from Michigan, did ROTC and double-majored in Pashto and Mechanical Engineering--gross, Poe, you’re drooling.”

“Shut up,” Poe says, with minimal heat. “Any clue why he was here?”

“Were you too busy licking his tonsils to ask?” Snap replies.

“I _asked_ , I just didn’t receive a satisfactory answer. Is he really 24?”

“He’s a baby,” Snap says. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“Right, I’ll pencil that in after my two o’clock on the Hill,” Poe says. “Anything else useful?”

Snap uncrosses his arms and pushes off of the doorframe. “Nothing that’ll help you lecherously ogle that child from afar. Chewie asked me to ask you to show your face for a few minutes at the budget meeting.”

“Who’s opposition sending?” Poe asks, shaking his mouse to wake up his computer. He can feel the hot coffee beginning to do the lord’s work inside his veins.

“I don’t know,” Snap says. “Why would I know that? Call Maz’s office and ask Cynthia.”

“That’s why I have _you_ ,” Poe reminds him. “Call Cynthia and ask who the opposition’s sending, okay? If it’s Hux then I’m not coming no matter how much Chewie yells at you, that guy fucking hates me.”

“You in fact don’t have me,” Snap reminds him. “You stole me from the president’s office and as soon as B.B. can breathe standing up I’m going back to my old job.”

“She’s bedridden for at least the next three weeks so I wouldn’t hold my breath,” Poe says. He pauses in the middle of scrolling through his inbox and says, “Why do I have an email from my mother that just says _CALL_?”

Snap, clearly bored, has drifted away from the doorway by the time Poe looks up. “I don’t know?” he calls lazily from out in the bullpen. “Call her and find out?”

Poe picks up his phone, dials Snap’s extension, and then says, “Patch me through to Senator Bey’s office.” He resumes scrolling through his email as he’s inevitably put on hold by his mother’s office manager and then personal assistant. There are three recent emails from Chewie time-stamped 8:07, 8:10, and 8:14 that turn out to be Chewie complaining about the smug assholes that have been sent over from opposition to tear holes in the budget plan. Poe is reading the 8:14 one, subject line: _RE: RE: IMMINENT DEATH OF ARMITAGE HUX_ , when he finally gets through to his mother.

“Hey, ma,” he says.

“Poe, mijo,” she says.

“No,” Poe says.

His mother, the most predictable woman in the state of Massachusetts, says, “You didn’t even know what I was going to say.”

“I don’t need to,” Poe says. “If you have to break out mjio so early I know that I’m going to hate whatever is coming next.” He’s honestly surprised she didn’t start out with _Poe, this is your mother_.

“I could be acknowledging our connection,” she says.

“Yeah,” Poe says, giving that the lengthy, sarcastic pause that it deserves. “I guess you could be. What can I do for you, ma?”

When Poe had called his mother as a child, he had always been able to hear the bustle of her office behind her--assistants yelling, constituents yelling, phones ringing, the fax machine buzzing endlessly--but phone technology has improved substantially in the last two decades. Poe can’t hear the rest of her office at all.

“Do you have time for lunch today?” she says. “I wanted to talk to you about something, it’d be nice to have something to eat. When was the last time you ate?”

“I’m literally eating a danish right this second,” Poe says. “Is this about the budget?”

Along with being extremely predictable, Poe’s mother is also a straightforward, practical person. “Yes,” she says.

“That’s Maz and Chewie’s game right now,” Poe says. “If you want to protect something from the opposition, you have to go to them.”

“I didn’t give birth to either of them,” Poe’s mother says. “Additionally, if you think I’d believe that the White House _communications staff_ has the last word on the budget, I’m offended that you think so little of me.”

“I didn’t say that they have the last word,” Poe says, trying not to sound outright cranky, “I just said that if you want something to have a no-fucking-around shield dropped over its head, I’m not your guy. Maz and Chewie are your guys. I have three emails from Chewie in my inbox talking about how he’s going to ritually murder Armitage Hux, so those are your guys.”

“Oh, they sent Armitage?” Poe’s mother sounds intrigued. “He couldn’t barter his way out of a paper bag.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Poe takes the chance to remind her, even though he does know and in fact agrees, “because I _am not your guy_.”

“Mijo,” his mother says, “you’re always my guy. Let’s get lunch at D’Agostino’s. Does one o’clock work?”

Unbelievable. “12:30,” Poe says. “I have to be on the Hill at two.”

~

Poe is sitting on the patio at D’Agostino’s, helpfully seated in semi-seclusion behind a spray of banana leaf trees, when his phone goes off at 12:40. There’s no sign of his mother, of course, so Poe answers, “Yeah?”

“Did you know that Greedo has a fucking blog?” Jess yells, tinnily and obviously on speakerphone.

“No,” Poe replies, “but I’m not surprised.” As a waiter drifts by, Poe presses his phone into his collarbone and says, “Can I get an unsweetened iced tea, please? Thanks.” He adjusts his phone and says, “Everybody has a blog. The _New York Times_ has bloggers.”

“Yes,” Jess says, “but nobody at the fucking _New York Times_ has audio of them being assaulted by a member of the first family!”

“You sound like you’re carrying a lot of stress, Jessika,” Poe says. He mouths _thank you_ at the waiter, who has returned with a glass of iced tea and a polite, frozen expression. “Maybe you should go beat up Greedo in the press corps office bathroom and then you’ll feel better.”

“Maybe I should beat up _you_ , Dameron,” Jess says.

“You could try,” Poe agrees gamely. “But I don’t think it’d do you a lot of good. I hate to spin it like this, Jess, but men 18-45 in red states are our worst demographic, and they’re going to eat this up with a spoon.”

Jess hums angrily.

“Seriously,” Poe says, “with Mothma pushing the president to go for the disappointed mom angle for the Ben disaster, I think the best way for you to spin this is a men being men thing.”

“You _disgust_ me,” Jess says.

“I didn’t say that I approve,” Poe points out.

“ _Men being men_?” Jess yells.

Poe says, “C’mon, Jess, are you telling me that you’ve never covered up somebody behaving badly by insisting it was a jocular misunderstanding between two testosterone heavy-hitters?”

“Greedo looks like the president of the fucking A/V club,” Jess says, “ _first of all_.”

“He was defending the honor of his wife, Jess,” Poe interrupts before Jess can really get going. His mother is going to show up for lunch at some point and Poe would like to be able to get off the phone for it. “I feel like a sleaze saying this, but it’s going to play great. Especially with men aged 18-55--”

“--in red states who think that the president is a danger to the our nation because she has the emotional control of a Nicholas Sparks heroine, yeah, yeah, I know.”

Poe says, “The only way Han isn’t a millstone around our necks is if we spin him right. And nobody spun him better during the campaign than you, Pava.”

Jess says, “Are you flattering me because you want to get me off of the phone?”

“I’m flattering you because I’m right and you’re really that good,” Poe says. Through the fronds of one of the banana leaf trees, he sees the maitre d’ show his mother onto the patio. “Also because I have to go and meet my mother for lunch.”

Poe’s mother smiles at the maitre d’ and then turns and gestures for someone behind her to come out onto the patio. Poe had noticed the third table setting, of course, but he’d assumed that it was for somebody from his mother’s office; Agnes, maybe, who’s worked for his mother for thirty years at this point and is just as good at taking notes in shorthand as she is at mercilessly heckling Poe. Poe had _not_ assumed that there would be somebody else totally unrelated to his mother’s office at lunch. Somebody else like SSgt. Finn Bolaji.

“I gotta go, Pava,” Poe says, and he hangs up on Jess, rocketing to his feet. “Senator!”

“Hello, Poe,” she says, coming around the table to kiss his cheek. “That looked serious, is everything all right?”

“You know how it is,” Poe says, inanely. “SSgt. Bolaji, nice to see you again so soon.”

“Hello, Mr. Dameron,” SSgt. Bolaji says, shaking his hand. “I hope you don’t mind my having interrupted your lunch.”

“Not at all,” Poe says. “I’m sure it’s my mother’s fault.”

“Oh!” says SSgt. Bolaji. He freezes in the act of pulling out Poe’s mother’s chair. The fact that he’s doing it at all is ridiculous, and it’s made even more ridiculous by the way the thin skin over his ears turns dark purple.

“You spoiled that surprise awfully quickly,” Poe’s mother says, frowning at him as she sits.

“I’m the fun police,” Poe agrees. “What’s she dragged you here for, SSgt. Bolaji? I thought this was about the budget?”

SSgt. Bolaji carefully tucks Poe’s mother into the table and then comes around to take his own seat. “I, uh, wouldn’t want to,” he tries, which is about as adorable as the ears thing.

“We can talk about the budget when I walk you back to the Hill, Poe,” his mother says. “I ran into this nice young man in my office today and I thought we might have some things to discuss. I see you’ve already met, though.”

“Aren’t you from Michigan?” Poe says.

“Yes,” SSgt. Bolaji says. “Uh, how do you know that?”

“I ran a background check on you,” Poe says. “I’m sure my mother did, too.”

“Pashto is a very practical language for this day and age,” Poe’s mother says. “He didn’t come see me as a constituent, Poe, he came because I’m on the Armed Services committee.”

“Wow, okay, if you couldn’t go through us you were going to go through SASC?” Poe says to SSgt. Bolaji, who is staring down into his menu like it’s going to swallow him into an alternate dimension and save him from this conversation. Poe sympathizes, abstractly.

“It’s _my_ bill, Poe,” Poe’s mother reminds him sharply. “The White House is providing assistance and support but he came to the right place if he wants to help.”

“Are you even legally able to help?” Poe asks SSgt. Bolaji. “I haven’t been over to see anybody in the council’s office about this yet. Isn’t commenting on classified information treasonous?”

“First of all, it’s not classified,” SSgt. Bolaji says. “Second of all, I’m not commenting on anything because I am currently serving as a member of the United States Air Force, which I _told you_ back in your office, senator, and you ignored.”

“You seemed like a nice young man,” says Poe’s mother.

Poe, as an attractive young man in his early thirties who was a dynamite in law school and has subsequently served as an important aide for a variety of exciting people, including the President of the United States, has dated a lot of people. He’s never hidden that from his mother. He’s also never heard her call somebody a _nice young man_ before, except to make fun of them.

“Whoa,” Poe says.

“Uh,” SSgt. Bolaji says.

“Slow down, here, ma,” Poe says. “Why don’t you tell Giorgio what you want to eat and then we can talk about literally anything else.”

“I’ve never been to Washington, D.C. before,” SSgt. Bolaji suggests, sounding desperate. His ears are less purple now but he isn’t any less distracting; the sunlight is doing very flattering things to the planes of his face. Poe is extremely lucky, professionally-speaking, that nobody the Republicans have thrown at him looks like SSgt. Bolaji.

“Wow!” Poe says. “SSgt. Bolaji has never been to D.C. Listen, man, are you staying around here? Do you run?” SSgt. Bolaji nods, rapidly. “Great, then you gotta do the mall tomorrow morning, as close to sunrise as you can get it. It’s incredible. Oh, hey, Giorgio, how’s it going? I’ll get a cup of the minestrone and a turkey panini, thanks.”

~

Chewie and Maz are still going strong at three, when Poe drops by the Roosevelt Room on his way back to his office from the Hill. “Hey,” he says, swinging in through the door and joining Chewie and Maz on their side of the conference table. “Carise, Hux, Di, nice to see you all again.”

“Dameron,” says Hux, mouth pursed tightly.

“Hello, Poe,” says Carise Sindrian, whose mouth is smiling but whose eyes are telling Poe to drop dead. “Nice of you to stop by.”

“I heard things were going so slowly that you had to order in lunch,” Poe tells her, smiling brightly with his whole face and dropping into the open chair next to Chewie. He leans back and takes advantage of the buoyancy of his chair to swivel it slightly. “How’s it going?”

“Let’s cut to the chase, shall we?” Hux says. “It’s not going through with the gun rider.”

“The gun bill has passed, Hux,” Maz says. “Now it is simply a question of how it will be enacted.”

“You may attempt to defang the second amendment all you like,” Hux says, “on your own party’s dime. However, you will not punish small business owners in order to perpetrate this criminal bill that you pushed through using your party advantage and a cloying display of public mourning.”

Chewie puts both hands on the conference table and leans forward; Hux jerks backwards. “In this fucking building,” he says, “we don’t refer to the funeral of a president as _cloying_.”

“Hey, buddy,” Poe says, putting a hand on Chewie’s arm, “I’m sure Hux meant that he was personally moved by President Amidala’s funeral service. The parade? Killer. I felt like a walking faucet.”

Hux makes a little moue of displeasure. He’s lucky he still has enough of a face left to emote at all. “We will not be moved on this point without substantial concessions,” Hux says.

“What do you want?” Maz inquires, in the quiet and misleading way she has of talking that distracts opponents from realizing she’s still working at this age because she eats all of her competitors for breakfast.

“Prayer in schools,” Hux says.

“Not gonna happen,” Poe sing-songs.

“Planned Parenthood,” Di says.

“Most certainly not,” Maz replies.

“Then,” Carise says, “the gun rider. Background checks are performed at the cost of the federal government.”

“I’d like to know how the hell you’re imagining this working,” Chewie says. “Does the FBI come and pay each gun distributor a dollar for every time they access the database?”

“A three-day waiting period will lead to a substantial decrease in business for these Americans,” Hux says. “Without any compensation, this presidency will be responsible for the loss of American jobs.”

“Last time I checked,” Chewie spits, “arms-dealing is illegal.”

“You are walking _dangerously_ close to being in violation of the Constitution with every day that this law exists,” Carise tells Maz, whom she has clearly and incorrectly perceived as being the opposition’s best hope. “As soon as businesses begin to close, the NRA is going to come down on you and every senator and congressman in your pocket like a load of bricks. Are you sure you’re ready for that?”

“I believe we are,” Maz tells her.

Poe hears the door open behind him and swivels around to see Snap, frowning into the conference room like he’s discovered an infestation of weevils. “Hey, is that my 3:15?”

“In your office,” Snap says.

“I gotta go--Hux, Carise, Di, a pleasure as always. You got a sec, Chewie?”

At the doorway, Poe lowers his voice and says, “Senator Bey’s pushing hard about the rider, Chewie. I just saw her for lunch and she says there’s solid opposition work to kill other implementation strategies if this doesn’t go through as-is. Keep a wall around it, okay?”

“Yeah,” Chewie says, clapping Poe on the shoulder and nearly sending him face-first into a window. “I got it. Now fuck off.”

~

The 8AM sitrep finally happens at 8PM, when the rescue mission of a downed pilot is complete and Jess has buried the story of the First Gentleman decking a muckraker of the first order behind twenty inches of solid American ingenuity and bravery. The Oval is the kind of jubilant it only is directly after a solid victory, when the president hasn’t had time to become bogged down by other issues.

“Poe!” she says when Poe finally scoots in. “Have you ever been on time to a meeting in your life?”

“No, Madam President,” Poe says, “and I’d hate to start now.”

“All right,” she says, pouring herself a glass of bourbon and then dropping into her favorite chair and putting her feet up on the coffee table between the sofas. “Talk to me about Han and Ben.”

There’s a few seconds of eye contact and silent fights for dominance before Mothma says, coolly crossing her legs, “We’ve sorted out the issue with Han and Greedo.”

“Buried it?” the president asks.

“Thanks for rescuing an American pilot dropped in the middle of enemy desert, ma’am,” Jess says.

The president snorts and drops back a significant swallow of bourbon. “One day,” she says, “nobody else will have done anything as stupid as my husband and then we’ll really be in trouble.”

“We’ll always have Russia,” Poe points out; Chewie smacks him in the back of the head. “Ow, Jesus, okay, no jinxing, no jinxing.”

“Where are we on the budget?” the president asks.

“They’re wearying,” Maz says. “I suspect tomorrow will break them. I will have to make moderate concessions in the public parks budget--I suspect Denali will be a target, as Carise Sindian’s husband is on the board of Royal Dutch.”

“Do your best,” the president says grimly. “I won’t have the United States responsible for bringing us to the brink of global climate catastrophe just because Carise Sindrian got hoodwinked by that fucking gigolo.”

Poe hears a strangled snort before he realizes that he’s the one making it; he coughs lightly into his fist and then straightens his tie. “Uh, ma’am, if I may,” he says, lifting his index finger.

“That’s never stopped you before, Dameron, so I’m not holding my breath,” she says.

“Thanks, Madam President,” Poe says. “I’ve been speeding up on the military policy adjustment--the trans rights act? It looks like I might have a live one on that, ma’am, but he’s military so he’s not willing to talk until his discharge goes through. I’m going to have Snap cancel my meetings and push them back a month. I don’t have a lot of momentum going yet so it shouldn’t stall anything.”

The president says, “A _live one_? Dameron, you’re from Massachusetts.”

“People fish in Massachusetts,” Poe says.

“Yeah,” the president says, “but somehow I doubt you ever did.”

“That really hurts me, ma’am,” Poe says, pressing his hand to his heart. “Me, and the fine state of Massachusetts.”

“It’s never going to leave this room,” the president says, in a slightly threatening way, “so who the hell cares? Take the time, get your fish. Just make sure you do this right, Dameron. I don’t want another Don’t Ask Don’t Tell mess on my hands. We get these servicemen and women their rights and we do it properly, or else there’s no point in any of you idiots running my office.”

“Of course, Madam President,” Poe says. “I wouldn’t do it any other way.”

~

Poe makes it home early enough that he’s actually in bed and asleep for a full five hours, which is the kind of treat he hasn’t had in months. He wakes up feeling like a swamp monster, which is less delightful, so he drops his face into a sinkful of cold water and goes for a run.

He’s halfway around the Lincoln Memorial, trying in a lackluster way to decide if he’s going to go up Independence and head home or loop the Reflecting Pool the way a person who doesn’t want to die at fifty-five might do, when he sees another jogger out of the corner of his eye. It’s not that there aren’t other people around--the Mall at 5:40AM is bustling with the exact kind of D.C. assholes you’d expect--but Poe is struck like a tuning fork and turns his head, not entire of his own volition, when he sees a flash out of the corner of his eye.

He sees a head. He can’t see the ears on the head but one might imagine that they’re purple, from exertion and blood circulation.

Poe, making the kind of split-second decision that had also lead him to Leia Organa-Solo’s presidential campaign back when it was a hot mess disaster dying on the porch of New Hampshire’s gubernatorial mansion, does not go down Independence or to the Reflecting Pool but instead puts on a burst of speed and circles the Lincoln Memorial. His lungs might pull themselves out of his chest in the process but he doesn’t really need them; a stupid sort of giddiness appears to be propelling him.

Poe makes it back around the Lincoln Memorial in time to realize that SSgt. Bolaji is not wearing a shirt. He nearly trips over a woman with a jogging stroller but manages to get his feet back under him enough to catch up as SSgt. Bolaji takes the path down to the Reflecting Pool.

“Hey!” Poe shouts when they’re nearly level. SSgt. Bolaji politely glances to his left and away, and then back again.

“Mr. Dameron,” SSgt. Bolaji says. He looks pleased but not at all surprised. Meanwhile, _Poe_ is surprised and he basically engineered this meeting.

“ _Poe_ ,” Poe says. “I’m about to collapse into the Reflecting Pool and drown myself and you’re going to have to fish me out, so we should be on a first name basis before that happens.”

SSgt. Bolaji laughs; the sweat-slicked muscles of his chest twitch and catch the light. It’s entirely possible at this point that Poe _is_ going to trip and fall into the Reflecting Pool. This is what happens when you get a good night’s sleep.

“Okay,” he says. “You can call me Finn, then.” They have to swerve around another woman with a jogging stroller; this one is a double-wide, with a pair of dozing toddlers in it. “Thanks for the recommendation, Poe. This is really beautiful.”

“We have to be on the other side of the Washington Monument to really get the full effect,” Poe says. “You up for that?”

Finn laughs and says, “Are you?”

“I slept five whole hours last night,” Poe says. “I’m up for anything.”

This is when Finn takes off like a shot, down the path south of the Reflecting Pool and disappearing into the distance like something from a Saturday morning cartoon. “Mother _fucker_ ,” Poe hisses. “You’re a cheater! I can’t believe it!”

“You said you were up for anything!” Finn hollers back, and, well: if Poe could resist rising to that kind of challenge, he wouldn’t work for the President of the United States.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] We the People](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13295169) by [jellyfishfire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellyfishfire/pseuds/jellyfishfire)




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